Urgently bring 26/11 perpetrators to justice: US to Pak

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Apr 13 (PTI) The US has reminded Pakistan of
its "special" responsibility to bring perpetrators of 26/11
Mumbai terror attacks to justice and asked it to do so
"urgently".
"There's an international responsibility to cooperate to
bring the perpetrators to justice and that Pakistan has a
special responsibility to do so transparently and urgently,"
State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters at his
daily news conference.
He was responding to queries on a statement of Tahawwur
Hussain Rana, Pakistani-Canadian accused in the terror attack
case, in court that he provided "material support" to the
terrorists at the behest of the Pakistan government and its
spy agency ISI and not the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
State Department spokesperson, however, refused to make
any comment on this statement by Rana, arguing this is
sub-judice.
"I'm not going to talk about what this individual has
said in pre-trial documents or in pre-trial hearings, because
it is a legal process that's moving forward," he said.
"This individual is in a trial right, or the trial hasn't
begun, it's a pretrial period, so I'm not going to talk about
his comments. That would be irresponsible and I'm not going to
do it," Toner said.
According to court document, Rana in his defence had said
his "alleged illegal acts of providing material support to
terrorists -- were done at the behest of the Pakistani
government and the ISI, not the Lashkar terrorist
organisation." His trial is set to begin on May 16.
However, Toner, in response to another question said the
US is working with Pakistan on counter-terrorism measure.
"If you're talking about broader counter-terrorism
cooperation with Pakistan, certainly that's ongoing and we are
very candid in sharing our views and sharing information with
Pakistan about terrorist threats, and we believe that that
cooperation continues to be good."